What The Capri Comeback Means For Your Summer Wardrobe

With temperatures rising, our pant legs are shortening as capris are coming back in full force. For Gen Z, the cropped style takes us back to our playground days, brimming with Disney Channel-coded clothing and a blinding array of colors and patterns. 

Initially written off as dated, much of the fashion world has accepted the capri comeback. Brands like Coperni, Ferragamo and Ganni are ushering the coquettish trend to the runway, while heritage fashion houses like Emilio Pucci and Givenchy have been heralding the style for decades. 

Created by German designer Sonja de Lennart in 1948, capris were inspired by her vacation to the Italian island from which the pant style borrows its name. Also known as "pedal pushers," De Lennart crafted capris as a practical response to summer activities, eradicating the need to roll up your trousers or hold your skirt. Infused with the laissez faire attitude of the sun-drenched region, capris are a way of bringing a sense of carefree freedom into the everyday. While seemingly innocuous, capris are also a revolutionary item. While we take our favorite pair of jeans for granted, women wearing pants went against the status quo in the early 20th century. Fashion historian and vintage expert Paige Rubin shares, "The craze for capris helped women ease out of wearing skirts all the time and ease into wearing pants as the style was considered very feminine." 

Now, clothing categories are blurring as we barely bat an eye at someone wearing a bra as a top or athleisure wear as eveningwear. "Dress codes in the '40s and '50s were still very much based on time of day and activity, so the capri also sparked an emergence of resort wear and leisurewear categories, which bled into other areas of life," Rubin adds.

Made popular by icons like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, the capri became a staple throughout the '50s and '60s. At a time when accentuating a woman's body was still a novel concept, the pants' uber-slim design broke the mold and led to a liberation in women's fashion. "In some ways, it is a feminist statement because it allowed women to wear a totally different category of clothing and given that it was considered to be flirty and sensual, it was another way of expressing one's sexuality."

As brands reimagine the vintage attire for the runway, a myriad of ways to wear capris has sprung forth. Continue reading to discover what the capri comeback means for your summer wardrobe and the brands leading its resurgence.

Coquettecore

For the Spring/Summer 2024 season, we saw Batsheva and Coperni lean into coquette capris as plentiful ruffles accented the brands' skin-tight pedal pushers. Meanwhile, Batsheva painted the calf-baring item in a bubblegum pink shade and decorated the pant leg with tulle. Elsewhere, Miaou has added delicate bows to the hemline of sleek pink capri, delivering a more subtle yet, girlish style.

Office Siren

With the noughties return of the office siren a la Gisele Bündchen, capris have become standard fare for your 9 to 5. Tory Burch understood the assignment for SS24, opting for an austere gray tweed set, while Carolina Herrera elevated the classic black capri with a matching fitted blazer and gold rose brooch. Crisp white shirts were transformed with the help of billowing sleeves and a snatched waist, juxtaposing slightly relaxed iterations of the cropped pants. Finally, Ottolinger reimagined the traditional pinstripe trouser with a baggy cropped style held perfectly at the bottom of the knee.

Capri Leggings

Thanks to Carrie Bradshaw, capri leggings are being cemented as the new city-girl look. The sleek style is ultra versatile as it can be worn effortlessly during the day or night. Ferragamo delivered the perfect uniform, pairing a utilitarian bomber jacket with skin tight capris. Elsewhere, London-based brand KNWLS and Barcelona-based brand Paloma Wool each deliver comfy, everyday iterations of the cropped pant in pastel hues.

Boxy Blokecore

While pedal pushers were initially designed to be figure flattering, boxy capris have become a bruh girl staple. Loewe boasted spacious green capris in its SS24 collection, while Victoria Beckham offered a gender bent, schoolboy-ish style with gray knee high socks and an ivory blazer. Louis Vuitton leaned into the sporty chic aesthetic with bright cobalt blue capris and a supple leather shirt jacket, completing the look with Peaky Blinder-inspired wing tips.

As the capri trend progresses, we anticipate that designers and streetwear trendsetters alike will continue to grow bolder with styling. Nodding to a Y2K-coded version of nostalgia, dresses and skirts are being artfully draped over pedal pushers at increasingly eager rate. Meanwhile, brands are using capris as a base to play with structure and shape, pairing the demure apparel with sculptural tops or enlivening it with unexpected fabrics. Originally crafted as a progressive and provocative article of clothing, capris truly stand the test of time -- flowing in tandem with the trend cycle and solidifying their status as an eternal It Girl item.

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